These accidents are an inherent problem with gasoline in an enclosed space.
A vapour detector in the bilge with an ignition cut-out?
Yea right.
A rough day, returning home against a chop, in a channel, in a current, rocks around, a rising crosswind, and needing the motor. The detector will then decide to cut out, for whatever reason. You will feel so much safer when it does.
That is a tragic story. It would be interesting to hear what the enquiry discovers.
I'm not sure how relevant this explosion is to gasloine powered sailboats. It is odd but in my lifetime I have personally heard of probably a couple dozen sailboats that exploded and except for one particularly eggregous case, all were propane explosions on boats with diesel engines. On the other hand, most of the powerboats that I have heard of that exploded have been gasoline engined.
The problem with carrying propane on a boat is that the boat should have a bilge blower, and explosion proof alternators, startes and electrical systems, just like a boat with gasoline on board, but they don't. Folks with gasoline engines usually understand the need to take proper precautions before firing up the engine, but people with propane systems often take them for granted.
Were any of those propane explosions in a boat with a properly ventilated outside storage locker? Most of the ones I have heard of were on boats with propane added on post-builder, and the tanks were not in compartments properly drained overboard. I have also always been a fanatic about shutting off the manual valve on the tank whenever the propane is not in actual use.
tweitz,
Modern propane onboard systems, if installed according to ABYC standards, are a safe and extremely convenient means for cooking and heating. The fact that most cruising boats today have them says much to the industry and public's acceptance.
Stating otherwise is analogous to blanketing all natural gas and LPG home installations as being unsafe. I had it in my last boat and will choose to have it in the next.
__________________ True Blue . . .
sold the Nauticat
My understanding is that's one gallon = 20 sticks.
"When mixed with air in the right proportions, the vapor of one cup of gasoline has the explosive power of about five pounds of dynamite, enough destructive force to destroy any house or car." Ref: NASD: Storing Gasoline and Other Flammables
I don't know how many sticks of dynamite it takes to get up to five pounds, but five pounds seems like a lot of dynamite to me!
Jim
__________________
"If fifty million people say a stupid thing, it is still a stupid thing." - Anatole France
1976 Pearson P30 #914 - s/v Abracadabra
The gasoline would have to be fully evaporated and perfectly mixed with air to generate that kind of force - and the comparison with dynamite is only fair comparing the volume of expansion gases generated but not the speed at which it happens. Gas ignites/deflagrates while Dynamite detonates and will create a pressure front/wave. Gasoline vapor will blow up a boat but can't cut down a telephone pole.
For the curious - most mining doesn't use dynamite as it is too expensive. They use something called ANFO which is basically diesel and Ammonium Nitrate (fertilizer).
What a horrible thing to happen to the people, and to a lovely old boat. Just awful. I grew up with gasoline engines (mostly the Utility Four, the Atomic Four, and a few Kermaths and Graymarines and some other antiques) and respected the danger, but wasn't paranoid about it. Nothing bad ever happened, but I thought the best vapor detection system was the human nose, down low in the bilge.
I agree with those above who've said that the real danger isn't at the dock, when you have time and quiet seas to delay ignition and sniff the bilge and run the blower, but later on when you need the engine unexpectedly and just hit the ignition without thinking about vapor accumulation.
Gasoline, when I was a kid, was the smell of something good about to happen. Trouble is, in a very few instances it was the smell of something really bad about to happen.
While this was terrible, and I like all you Aussies, I think the tendency to overreact and over-regulate is even stronger there than in the States, if that's possible..
The explosive force of a solvent vapor cloud explosion comes from confinement of the vapor. Without confinement, with a simple vapor cloud in air, you have a flash fire. With confinement, such as vapors in an engine compartment or bilge, you have an explosion. Any flammable liquid, gasoline, acetone, paint thinner, starting ether, etc., has the potential for a vapor cloud event under the right (or wrong) circumstances.
What a horrible thing to happen to the people, and to a lovely old boat. Just awful. I grew up with gasoline engines (mostly the Utility Four, the Atomic Four, and a few Kermaths and Graymarines and some other antiques) and respected the danger, but wasn't paranoid about it. Nothing bad ever happened, but I thought the best vapor detection system was the human nose, down low in the bilge.
I agree with those above who've said that the real danger isn't at the dock, when you have time and quiet seas to delay ignition and sniff the bilge and run the blower, but later on when you need the engine unexpectedly and just hit the ignition without thinking about vapor accumulation.
Gasoline, when I was a kid, was the smell of something good about to happen. Trouble is, in a very few instances it was the smell of something really bad about to happen.
It's quite incredible to me that someone could buy an old well-maintained boat, put their nearest and dearest on it, follow all the correct procedures for fuelling (including waiting 5 minutes or so afterwards) and then blow it all sky-high. It was really not his day...
Perhaps he did put fuel in the wrong tank - it's possible I suppose - but there were no reports of fuel smell at the time so everyone's assuming it was something in the engine compartment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nolatom
While this was terrible, and I like all you Aussies, I think the tendency to overreact and over-regulate is even stronger there than in the States, if that's possible..
Ahhh... yes. The authorities here have a habit of running around in circles clockwise for a bit, and then unwinding themselves in the other direction, then actually thinking about it... and then forgetting what it was they were going to do. I think it's inherited from the US of A from watching too many of your stupid TV shows...
The guy that runs the restaurant is a good friend of one of my work collegues and was the first on the scene. He said the guy was a blithering mess (as you'd expect) and now has to get his life back together.
Personally, I hope the authorities forget about it. Stuff happens.
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Last edited by Hartley18 : 05-13-2008 at 08:11 PM.
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